Männid kastanis: Pilbara bushlife

After the last two days at work (Saturday was a full day, so 1,5 times eleven hours’ pay, which was great) a good-bye gathering at our place and the Sports Club, and cleaning up the house so as not to get fined for not cleaning up after all that the previous tenants of the last two months had left behind, we finally hit the road and left Onslow behind for good. The first drive to Karratha (3 hours) seemed long and slow because we were not used to these long drives anymore. In Karratha, I wanted to buy almost everything that I saw because firstly I could (no possibilities in Onslow for any kind of equipment) and secondly, everything was so much cheaper (sometimes 150% cheaper and other times 3-4 times or even 7 times cheaper than Onslow General Store). Did some illegal camping just out of Karratha (can give tips if anyone needs to do the same in the future :D) with a great view to the sea and mangroves to get all geared up on food -next shop 635km- and fuel -next, very expensive one 573km away, (if we would have gone straight, which we did not). Our next stop was the Millstream Chichester national park with an Oasis in the bush (some pools and rivers, great views from lookouts) where we stayed for one night; did not pay entrance, but paid for camping, which was enough for us.

On the road again

Some aboriginal rockart

Have to be careful while admiring the rockart

For Vidrik

Just chillin

The leaving party

Playing balls at Onslow Sportsclub

Onslow Sportsclub

Our view at the illegal camping spot near Karratha

Some more rockart

A wildflower

Python pool

Next day we headed for the Karijini National park. The main park is in the south, which we already saw four years ago when we were also in this region. We decided to take the northern road, because we had not been there yet, although there were no roads on the map that actually lead towards the park. Actually there was nothing at all on the map on this road except a town name „Wittenoom“, but we’ll get to that. There was also a gorge that we had visited the last time on the western side of Karijini (gorges are deep narrow valleys with steep sides, which Karijini is known for) that was one of my favourite ones, and since it was only a 30km detour, we decided to see it again. Nearing the gorge from the exact opposite direction than we had done the previous time, we found ourselves on a road that was less than two cars wide and had rock walls going straight up on both sides. There were some wider pockets between its bending curves for when you met another car, but as it happens often in the West, we did not meet any cars. The last time we had been in the Hamersey gorge, the parking lot and the facilities were still being built and we were able to swim and climb in its pools alone for a long time before the next visitors came. This time, everything was all ready and polished and we found seven cars in the parking lot, German echoing all over the valley. The gorge still had its colorful wavy walls – a psychedelic effect guaranteed- and the water was still pretty and clean, with trees giving shade and so on, so despite all the people, it was still worth the detour.

Hamersley gorge

Lunch break

More of Hamersely

The road to Hamersely

When we headed back where we were actually planning to go (the road going east north of Karijini), we saw big signs about Asbestos danger in the area. As the map said, there were no roads to be seen that would go left, and our necks were already going sore from staring to the same direction. But all of a sudden, we saw an asbestos warning sigh in the middle of the bush, and that would only mean a side road. Sure enough, we found a road(-ish kind of thing), more of a path for cars. The track kept following by the side of the road along the hills until it finally disappeared between the hills, getting more and more 4WD as we went on, with big stones paving the road, indicating that water must be using the same road from time to time to escape the gorge. There were trees and bushes, in contrast to the low bush that had been surrounding our way at the main road and we moved slower and slower due to the ’road’ getting worse and worse. Suddenly, when we were already anxious to find out where the road leads to (and well... we were getting further and further away from the actual road and from any possibility of help in case of breaking down), we found a car and a an offroad caravan camping. It turned out that they had a map with even the offroad tracks on it and the track we were on, was leading to the southern part of Karijini. So we followed the road for another couple of kilometres and decided to follow the other exporers’ lead – why not camp in a beautiful place with all the privacy and freedom to run around naked and do whatever we wanted. The hills in Karijini are not made up from your usual reddish layers of Australian rock. I found stones on the ground that were ranging from bright red to yellow, from deep purple to ink blue and many many that were like nature-made paintings smashing all these stones together with tectonic forces. (I collected some stones and tried to make a Rainbow Serpent – the aboriginal mythical creature, who lived in the Dreamtimes and is responsible for most of the significant geographic landmarks of Australia. The serpent was often helped by a giant mythical kangaroo which I did not attempt to recreate mostly due to the sun setting). We also had a campfire and were sorry that we did not have any kangaroo tails with us because this would have been the perfect place for cooking one for the first time.

The next day we got back on the main road and after some driving found ourselves near some houses. We found ourselves in a seemingly deserted town with beat-up houses and smashed up cars. When we saw a man walking around and mowing the grass(?), we decided to take the small road north, despite the fact that in some of the maps there wasn’t even a road. There were more asbestos signs (on one, the word ’asbestos’ had been changed into ’zombies’) as we followed the road, which was partly quite good asphalt, partly had more holes than there was asphalt, partly rough 4WD track and sometimes had pieces of it carried away by floods. At the end of the road, we found what seemed to had been another small town, except this one did not have any houses left. There were small roads and stone steps and some plants that did definitely not occur naturally in this area. On the road, we found a side of the hill that was quite bluish-gray and it seemed that someone had been mining it. We decided that they had had an asbestos mine and a quite lovely place to live until someone discovered that asbestos was bad for you and there were health risks, which is why everybody moved away. Later, after googling the town, we found out that we had guessed right and that there were three people still living in the first town (the one with houses). So after visiting one more unmapped road to another gorge, which looked pretty much similar to the last one, we decided to move on. It is funny how you become immune to amazing things after a while. You can look in awe for hours and wonder how such beautiful things can occur in the nature. But when you see too much of it, you feel bored about things that you would previously have been so amazed of. The season of wildflowers was still going on in Karijini so the colours of the bush was constantly changing... luckily I did not grow tired of that.

The rainbow serpent that I made

Camping alongside the unmapped track

Asbestos warning

Psychedelic rocks

Wittenoom church (everything is like sheds in Australia :D)

No more fuel

This is what happens when you don't wash your dishes

After leaving Karijini behind, we got to Auski tourist village, which is an overpriced place (well... the prices are the same as in Onslow), like they all are, to get a few more litres of petrol (we did have some more in the jerrycan, but not enough to get us to Port Headland, which was the next reasonable town) and we were recognised by a girl, who had also worked in Onslow but had left a month before us. Australia IS a big place, but there are only so many places where you will stop so I guess that we will see more of some people that we have already met. So right now we are in a Caravan park in South Headland to wash ourselves and our dishes (which have been ’bushwashed’ for the last couple of days), freeze the bottles of water that kept our esky cool for the trip and do some job searching. But we will probably head on to Broome because there seems to be more vacant positions for the kind of jobs that we are searching for. Luckily we have our AirCon working now, because tomorrow, the Great Sandy Desert awaits us with even lower bush and higher temperatures.